


but with you my dear i'm safe (and we're a million miles away)

by goingmywaydoll



Series: we're lying on the moon [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Jyn Erso-centric, One Shot, Post-Battle of Scarif, Sharing a Bed, and so is cassian he's just sick of it, i love my two idiots, jyn is emotionally guarded
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-08
Updated: 2017-02-08
Packaged: 2018-09-22 23:38:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9630038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goingmywaydoll/pseuds/goingmywaydoll
Summary: Cassian is standing there, his hair messy and his eyes sleepy, but he stands at attention despite his disheveled air. When he realizes it’s Jyn at his door, he relaxes, but his brow furrows.“Jyn?” His voice is thick with sleep as he leans forward, his eyes squinting.





	

**Author's Note:**

> i feel like i needed to publish some fluff after that last fic so...here it is. theres a million other fics abt the aftermath of scarif but this is mine and tbh i couldnt care less i had fun writing it

 

_ Yavin IV :: 0800 Hours _

 

 

There’s dried blood in her nail beds. She can’t think of what to do with her hands so she picks at them until the dark turns bright red. A medical droid attempts to bandage her hands but she brushes it off and doesn't move from her chair. Bodhi comes and goes—he’s getting bacta treatments hourly and she can tell he wants nothing more but to sit by the bed with her. A part of her wants to keep busy, distract herself from the fact that Cassian hasn’t stirred in days, but the rest of her thinks of Cassian waking when she’s not there, or worse, Cassian never waking and no one telling her. They were supposed to die on Scarif, she can feel it deep in her bones. They’re living on borrowed time.

When she’s released from medical and assigned sergeant status, a room and clothes that aren't caked in blood and sand, she goes to the med bay every couple hours. The Alliance seems to think her combat training with Saw wasn't official enough, so she’s stuck with the other new recruits most days. 

She pins the instructor to the ground on the first day and receives her first official warning.

Most of the recruits don’t know who she is for the first week, but sometime during the second week of training, she begins to hear whispers.

“I heard her dad was an Imp.”

“Apparently she took out Darth Vader with his own lightsaber.” She can’t help but scoff audibly at that one.

“They say Andor took a blaster shot meant for her.”

“Really? I heard he took Krennic out while being paralyzed from the waist down.”

And one day, when she just can’t help herself, she says, “I heard good people died on that mission so you could live, and not so everyone could be gossiped about.”

The recruits spin around to face her, red quickly blooming on their cheeks. They stumble over an apology, talking over each other all at once but she walks away before they have the chance to slow down. She doesn’t have a clear destination in mind, just somewhere that isn't with the new recruits. 

She’s not surprised when she ends up in medical, relaxing into the chair beside Cassian’s bed. His color is coming back, but he’s still unconscious and it’s going to take more than a droid’s prognosis to make her feel better. It’s odd to see him like this. She’s never seen him asleep, she realizes. His hand is resting on the mattress above the blankets, just inches from hers. She raises her own hand and folds it into his. The skin is warm and comforting. It makes him feel like less of a corpse. She focuses on the way that his chest is rising and falling and the warmth of his hand in hers.

The door to medical slides open and in a split second, Jyn’s hand is slipping from Cassian’s and folding on her lap.

General Draven stands in the door, looking completely unsurprised to find her here. She wonders if he had caught sight of her hand. She supposes she’ll never know—the general never reveals anything he doesn’t need to. 

“Sergeant Erso,” he says, walking over to the bed and she wonders if he was looking for her. 

“General,” she says, lifting her chin slightly and remaining in the chair. It makes Draven’s jaw clench and she schools her face into a passive expression. 

“You’re supposed to be in combat training,” he says, taking the chair on the other side of Cassian’s bed.

“I’ve already been trained in combat,” she says for what feels like the hundredth time that week. They never listen.

“There’s protocol,” the General says. Jyn raises one eyebrow.

“I didn’t take you for a stupid man,” she says and Draven’s jaw clenches again, so she tacks on, “General,” before he decides to court-martial her. “You know I don’t follow protocol.”

There’s a long pause where she wonders if Draven will just get up and leave, sending someone else to deal with her later. 

“I was not the one to recommend we recruit you, Sergeant Erso,” he says finally. Jyn looks up from Cassian to meet his cool gray eyes. He’s studying her, she can tell. “You’re volatile, you are unpredictable, and you make a point to disobey orders. In fact, I made the recommendation to Senator Mothma that we send you on your way. She disagreed. Clearly, or else you wouldn’t be here.”

“Thanks,” she says dryly, smiling a smile with no humor.

“I especially did not want you near my officers,” he says, ignoring her. “One officer in particular.”

“Three guesses who,” mutters Jyn under her breath.

“Captain Andor has disobeyed my orders twice in his time working under me,” Draven says, ignoring her once more. “Once, on Eadu, and then at the Battle of Scarif.” 

“Eadu?” she asks, playing dumb. She knows Cassian told Draven he didn’t have a good shot at her father and she’s not about to tell him the truth.

“My dear Sergeant Erso,” he says coldly, “Do you really think I don’t know that Captain Andor had a clear shot?”

“I wasn’t with him at the time, so even I don’t know if he had a clear shot,” she says.

“No, you weren’t, were you?” Draven says. “You were on the platform. Curious.” Though his words hint the opposite, Draven’s tone tells her he knows exactly what happened on Eadu. “You do make a habit of going where you don’t belong.”

While the majority of this conversation has been a mild annoyance for Jyn, with an underlying sense of wariness, that sparks something in her. She stands, the back of her legs pushing the chair back with a screech. Draven raises his eyebrows up at her. She can feel her blood pumping in her ears and she wants nothing more than to wrap her hands around Draven’s throat. She’s not sure how long she stands there, her nails digging into her palms so hard they nearly draw blood.

“Do compose yourself, Sergeant Erso,” Draven says after a while. The logic in her says that attacking Draven will only make things worse and the voice sounds suspiciously like Cassian’s. She sits back down, perhaps a little more aggressively than necessary. “Why are you here?”

“Excuse me?” she snaps. Her anger may have faded somewhat, but that doesn’t mean she’s going down without a fight.

“We broke you out of prison fully expecting to either put you back there or let you go. You did neither. Why are you here?”

She can’t think of a response. She knows she wants to be here—if she didn’t she’d have left the second they arrived. She knows she only entertained the idea of leaving once, but then Cassian has passed out and she knew she couldn’t leave before he woke up. So was it Cassian? Was he why she was here? Even if he was, she couldn’t tell that to Draven.

“I’m here to help the Alliance,” she says. A half-assed answer, one that’s full of shit—both she and Draven know it—but she gives it anyway. 

“You had no loyalty to the Alliance a week ago.”

“Loyalties change.”

“That’s not very encouraging to hear from a new recruit.” Draven sits back in his chair, lacing his fingers together as he studies her carefully. “The rest of the council seems to think you can be trusted, so it really doesn’t matter what I think. But I still am Captain Andor’s supervising officer. And I’d like him to get back in the habit of following orders.”

“I think that’s up to Captain Andor, isn’t it?” she says. Draven smiles without humor and it sends shivers up Jyn’s spine.

“I think you’d agree there are other…factors at play.” The way that Draven says factors tells her he knows exactly what those factors are. Her. 

“Are you telling me to stay away from Captain Andor?”

“That seems like a weighty request for me to ask of you.” Draven stands, glancing at Cassian’s sleeping form quickly before looking back to Jyn.

“That’s not an answer.”

Draven turns and she thinks he’s going to leave the conversation at that before he says, as he’s walking away, “Just get back to training, Sergeant,” and then he’s gone. 

 

 

_ Yavin IV :: 0700 Hours _

 

 

Cassian wakes the next day when Bodhi is on a scouting mission, but Jyn is across the base in minutes when she catches snippets of the news in the hangar.

 

 

Cassian is not certain exactly what compels him to do it, but he finds himself raising his arm from the bed, ignoring the pain in his muscles at the movement, and touches his palm to her cheek. Jyn turns her head towards him more slowly than he expected—he’d be lying if he said he didn’t think she’d pull away, but she doesn’t, her green eyes meeting his. He watches as she swallows thickly, unsure of what to say next. 

“Will you—“ he starts, but his voice cracks from disuse. “Will you stay?” When she doesn’t respond, but doesn't break eye contact either, he tries again. “With the Alliance. Will you stay?” It’s not what he was asking, not really, but he can tell that every fibre of her being is telling her to run, so he makes it easier on her. He’s a coward, anyway, and doubts he’d be able to ask her what he really wants to know. When she still doesn’t respond, the gears turning in her head, his hand falls back to the bed, almost lamely, and then she nods.

“I’m staying,” she says, and something that feels a lot like relief floods his veins. 

 

 

_Hoth 0300 Hours_

 

 

Jyn throws herself onto the ship, landing hard on her shoulder. She sighs in relief, ignoring the shooting pain in her arm from the fall. She scrambles upwards, turning towards Cassian should be. He had been right behind her, he had promised to cover her. But there’s no one behind her in the cargo hold of the ship and the door is rising.

“ _Cassian?_ ” she chokes out, her head whipping around to scan the ship. She pushes herself into the cockpit, where Bodhi and K-2 barely acknowledge her. “Where’s Cassian?”

“On the ground, I presume,” K-2 says, much too calm for the situation.

“Well, then land!” she snaps. “What are you doing, we’ve got to go get him!”

Bodhi and K-2 remain silent and Jyn feels like hitting something.

“Give me the controls, I’ll do it,” she says, trying to push Bodhi aside. Cassian is on that planet, surrounded by ‘troopers and they’re doing _nothing_. She reaches for the controls but Bodhi’s hand darts out. He grabs her wrist, stopping her in her tracks. She’s stronger than Bodhi, she knows this, but she can’t seem to pull herself away. Bodhi’s eyes are cold.

She rips away from him finally, returning to the cargo hold. She can do nothing as the ship rises slowly, a cloud of dust surrounding them. Through it, she sees Cassian, alone, forced to his knees, a blaster at the back of his head. Her nails are digging so hard into her palm they’re starting to bleed.

The kyber crystal at her throat burns and the ‘trooper’s blaster goes off.

And Jyn jolts awake, coated in sweat. She wipes the tears she didn’t know had leaked and brushes her hair out of her face. Her blankets are in a tangle on the floor and she’s shivering. The thermal sleep clothes everyone has been given for Hoth are doing nothing to keep her warm, especially since she’s broken into a cold sweat. The image of Cassian with a blaster to his head is stained across her eyelids and her eyes squeeze shut so that the image is replaced with red spots dancing across her vision.

Before she can even think about what she’s doing, she’s throwing on her coat over the thermals and slipping on her boots. There’s no one in the corridors—nights on Hoth are even colder than the days and she’s already missing the relative warmth of her bed.

When she arrives at Cassian’s door—because that’s where she’s ended up, without thinking or trying to—she realizes there’s a keycode. She raises her hand to knock, but it only hovers before the door. She hadn’t even planned on coming here, not to mention what she would do when she got here.

Before she can stop herself, she raps her knuckles against the cold metal of the door. Several moments pass and they go by so slowly she considers going back to her room. Just as she’s about to turn, there’s the sound of the door unlocking and it slides open.

Cassian is standing there, his hair messy and his eyes sleepy, but he stands at attention despite his disheveled air. When he realizes it’s Jyn at his door, he relaxes, but his brow furrows.

“Jyn?” His voice is thick with sleep as he leans forward, his eyes squinting.

“I—“ she starts, but the words catch in her throat. If she felt lost before, standing at his door deciding to knock or not, it’s nothing compared to how she feels now with him looking down at her. “I—“ She tries again, but can’t get the words out again, angry at herself. Cassian swallows, waits then steps aside. Jyn hesitates before stepping in the room. It’s dark, but she can tell it’s bigger than her room, though it doesn’t betray any more of a personal touch than hers.

“I have dreams,” she says finally after the door slides shut and locks behind her automatically. Cassian is standing in front of his bed, his brow still knit in a frown. “I’m not sure what I’m doing here, I just thought—“

“Jyn, it’s all right,” he says, stepping forward. “The dreams… I think we all have them.”

Whatever tension was in her shoulders is slowly dissipating with every second, but she can still feel the knot in her stomach. She’s trying to work through the words in her head when Cassian takes another step forward.

“Jyn…would you like to stay?” he asks slowly. She can’t seem to verbalize her answer so she merely nods and hopes he can see the movement in the dark. Judging by the way he turns to his bed, spreading the blankets out and moving the pillows, he had. She takes off her coat and drapes it over the chair neatly placed beside the spotless desk. She lines her boots up perfectly beside it, feeling guilty for adding anything to the uniformity of Cassian’s room. When she turns back around, Cassian is dropping a pillow and a blanket on the floor.

“What are you doing?” she asks, her cheeks flaming when he faces her. “I’m not going to kick you out of your own bed.”

“It’s fine,” he says, shrugging. “I have had worse beds.”

“And there’s a perfectly good one right here,” she says, walking across the room and crawling to one side of the bed. She pulls the blankets up to her chin because it’s Hoth and she's just spent much too long without a coat on. Cassian looks as though he’s going to ignore her, his gaze flickering to the makeshift bed on the floor. She jerks her head in the direction of the bed and he bends down to pick up the pillow and blankets before slipping into bed beside her. The bed is just small enough that they can’t manage to both lie down without touching, but it will be comfortable enough. Jyn turns her head to face Cassian, unsure if she should stay anything. He’s lying on his back with his hands folded across his torso, his gaze trained on the ceiling.

“You _can_ move, you know,” she says quietly. Cassian’s head turns to look at her, a grin pulling at his lips.

“I wanted to make sure you could be comfortable.”

“Like I said,” she says, “It’s your bed.”

“Not for tonight it’s not,” he says and she watches the muscles in his throat contract as he swallows.

_What’s mine is yours._

The mattress dips as Cassian shifts, moving so that he’s not lying stiffly on his back. Jyn smiles into her hand and closes her eyes.

When she finds, ten minutes later, that she still can’t fall asleep, she whispers his name soft as anything. He moves instantly and she knows that he was awake too.

“Thank you,” she says softly.

There’s a pause, and then: “It’s nothing.”

But it isn't and they both know it.

 

 

They never speak as much as they did that first night. It’s become a routine. Jyn goes back her room each night, but not one hour later, she always ends up in Cassian’s. Sometimes he pauses as she walks in and gets into bed at the same time as her, sometimes he just opens the door and crawls back into bed.

The only thing that remains constant is their silence. He won’t ask her about when she wakes up in a cold sweat, she won’t ask him about the words he mutters in his native language in his sleep. They certainly don’t mention it when they leave the room.

And Jyn is always gone by the time his chrono goes off in the morning.

 

 

_Hoth :: 2200 Hours_

 

 

“I think if K were here, he’d tell us about the statistical probability of increased warmth if you were to actually touch me,” Jyn says one night after crawling into bed. It’s particularly cold that night and it’s seeping into her bones. Cassian’s gaze snaps to hers, surprised to hear her voice here. Perhaps talking about it is making it more real, perhaps it’s sinking in for him, this routine. Maybe he’ll decide he doesn’t want to deal with a sergeant with PTSD and bad sleep habits.

“Are you saying you wish K were here?” he asks after a pause. Jyn snorts.

“That is absolutely not what I am saying,” she says. In response, Cassian throws caution to the wind and extricates his arm from the blankets. There’s a rush of cold from the movement, but it quickly passes when Cassian reveals what he's doing. He tucks his arm around Jyn, pulling her closer to him. His skin feels blazing against hers and she rests her head on his shoulder as she shifts closer. The effect is instantaneous. Jyn can feel her fingers gain their feeling back, her muscles relaxing. Cassian’s breath is soft against the top of her hair, the sound of his heartbeat steady in her ear.

It ends up being the best sleep she’s had in months.

(What he won’t tell her until later is that it ended up being his too)

It’s also the first time she stays until he wakes.

The lids of her eyes feel heavy and she has to blink hard to rid them of the sleep. She hasn’t moved since she fell asleep, her head still resting on Cassian’s chest and her arm thrown over his torso. She tilts her head upwards to see Cassian’s his eyes still shut, his hair sticking up, the almost ever-present crease between his eyebrows softened.

It’s also the first time she’s really paid attention to what she’s leaving every morning.

He begins to stir, and Jyn’s eyes close before she can catch sight of his. She can feel his muscles tense, telling her the moment he realizes she’s still here. He doesn’t say anything and she wonders if he’s guessed that she’s already awake. S he twists her body so she can face him, propping herself up on her elbows. She can feel the absence of warmth now that she’s not tucked into Cassian’s side but ignores it. Cassian is looking at her so intently she wonders if she miscalculated by staying through the night. He’s guarded, maybe even more guarded than her, and this silence, the way neither will acknowledge their new arrangement—it can't be nothing.

_There’s a reason the people you love aren’t around. Don’t give him a chance to leave like the others_.

She doesn’t say anything as she reaches for her coat after crawling out from under the blankets. The rush of cold air is enough to pull a soft hiss from her lips and she’s shaking as she pulls the coat on. Cassian is sitting up in bed, watching her carefully, his brow crinkled in a frown.

“You don’t have to go,” he says as she laces up her boots. “If you don’t want to, you don’t have to go.”

She waits so long to respond she wonders if he thinks she won’t.

“Okay,” she says finally and moves so that she’s curled into his body once more. His eyes close before hers and she takes the rare moment to let a smile drift across her lips before swallowing the feeling and pushing it down. His arm moves to wrap around her and she feels him take a lock of her hair in his hands, twisting it gently between his fingers.

And as her eyes drift shut and she listens to the _thumpthump_ of Cassian’s heart, she thinks of the elevator on Scarif for the first time.

Cassian had been leaning against her, his breathing labored and shaky. She had allowed herself to meet his eyes and a thought had crossed her mind, unbidden but not unwanted—maybe, in a different world, at a different time, they’d have time.

But Bodhi had been waiting with the U-Wing outside the transport pod and suddenly taking quiet moments at the end of the world didn’t feel so necessary.

But now.

She thinks she might make plans, now that she's got the time.


End file.
